1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to mobile data networks, and more specifically relates to making subscriber data accessible in a mobile data network.
2. Background Art
Mobile phones have evolved into “smart phones” that allow a subscriber not only to make a call, but also to access data, such as e-mails, the internet, etc. Mobile phone networks have evolved as well to provide the data services that new mobile devices require. For example, 3G and 4G networks cover most of the United States, and allow subscribers high-speed wireless data access on their mobile devices. In addition, phones are not the only devices that can access mobile data networks. Many mobile phone companies provide equipment and services that allow a subscriber to plug a mobile access card into a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port on a laptop computer, and provide wireless internet to the laptop computer through the mobile data network. In addition, some newer mobile phones allow the mobile phone to function as a wireless hotspot, which supports connecting several laptop computers or other wireless devices to the mobile phone, which in turn provides data services via the mobile data network. As time marches on, the amount of data served on mobile data networks will continue to rise exponentially.
Most data transfers in a mobile data network are initiated by a subscriber. One way for a subscriber to initiate a data transfer is to send an e-mail, or to invoke a web page. There have been some attempts at making data transfers across mobile devices data-centric. One form of data-centric communication uses a publish-subscribe model, which allows subscribers to sign up for data. When a data source publishes data, the data is sent to all subscribers who have signed up for the data. The advantage of this type of data-centric communication is the data can be exchanged without the publisher knowing anything about the subscribers (other than where to deliver the data) and without the subscribers knowing anything about the publisher (other than how to sign up for the data). Instead both publishers and subscribers focus on what the data is as inscribed in the definition of the data.
Internet-based services have arisen that allow a user to store a large amount of the user's data in the cloud. Cloud-based services take advantage of storage and processing capacity that is both readily available and easily expandable in the cloud. While these Internet-based services can be used by subscribers of a mobile data network, these services are cloud-based and are not provided within a mobile data network. Thus, the problem of storing subscriber data in a mobile data network remains largely unsolved. Data-centric communication in mobile data networks has not caught on due to the lack of known mapping between subscribers and data, due to a lack of scalable storage capability across the mobile data network, and due to the lack of service with continuous infrastructure connectivity. While known mobile data networks can be used as a conduit for accessing cloud-based storage for subscribers, known mobile data networks do not offer support for storing subscriber data in the mobile data network.